Cynical, hater, liar, thief
The stench of who I am
Repulsive, ugly, awful, sick
Before God how dare I come
How sad His heart in His grief.
That one as blessed as I
Forsake, neglect, forget, deny
The Lord who gave Himself for me
Freely, willingly, planned, bloody
It was for me He died.
Selfish, greedy, vindictive, vain
Of darkest dark of blackest night
Seared, scarred, angry, fake
Yet for me He such degradation bore
Taunted by men held in deep destain.
Yes, yes, oh yes, so true
Even now I give up the fight
Easy, forgetful, vanity, ego
I sin over and over again
Knowing right yet wrong I do.
Reflection, revelation, open, truth
Who I am in my own eyes
Repelling, stench, rotten, cold
Yet Jesus in love and grace
Does not hold Himself aloof.
Tenderly, knowingly, tearfully, free
He finds His daughter everyday
Mercifully, graciously, lovingly, joyfully
He sees me through His eyes
Covered and cleaned He looks at me.
Renewed, revived, restored, redone
By God the Father, Son, Holy Ghost
Reminded, reclaimed, reviewed, released
Despite myself and my foolishness
I remain His child through His Son.
d.f.a.v. 9/27/13

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39 NIV

“…You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19c-20. NIV

“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23 NIV

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” Romans 7:15 NIV

Abba Father:
You are always awake Abba!
Always ready for our prayers!
I’ve awaken with a need to seek
Your counsel, comfort and Your care.
My friend Liz has lost her husband
Their daughter’s grief too needs release,
Both of them are hurting Lord
Be comfort, strength and peace.
Wherever Mitch is right now,
In a maze he doesn’t understand,
Send someone to reveal You to him
Rescue, reach and free him with Your nail scarred hand!
Alex Lord will You be with him?
Thank You for his life with us!
His family Abba needs Your peace
Your hope, Your might and touch.
Our child Lord God I bring to You
This miracle in our lives
Her world is changing quickly be her
Protector, Friend and Guide.
My husband Lord I pray for him
He’s wrestling with life’s ways
Be with him in battle Lord
His shield, might, and confidence on this day.
For those who are seeking You,
The souls I do not know to name,
Meet them where they are right now!
Send Light, send help, end Satan’s game!
Thank You Abba Father
For meeting here with me
Thank You for the peace I find
With You, in You, by You in our cottage by the sea.
d.f.a.v. 9/24/13

Although today’s blog talks about fathers and daughters the basic principle of how our relationship with our earthly father helps form our ideas and feelings about our relationship with our Heavenly Father are the same.

Besides being a hard man to live with the greatest lesson I learned from my father was that I couldn’t trust him. As is common among sons and daughters they want their parent’s approval and so I wanted my father to love me. But his love came with a price tag none of us could pay although he literally took it out of our hides.

Because of the physical, emotional and spiritual abuse I’d experienced as a child under my father’s hands he and I didn’t interact very much once I reached junior high school. Our conversations, when they occurred, were short, to the point and pretty much one-sided. My siblings and I had no privacy, journals kept meant journals read, if it was in his house he had every right to it, to take money we’d earned out of our purses or wallets, to turn our rooms upside down looking for “something” and even the least thing could be turned as evidence against you for crimes imagined in his head. I truly believe he enjoyed my feelings of worthlessness, despair and brokenness. He would often do or say something that make me feel even less worthy of life, “You’re such a cow, no wonder that boy broke up with you, I’m surprised he even dated you to start with.”

Yet the cruelest of his tactics was when he’d come to me and be kind, encouraging and supportive saying, “Tell me what’s wrong Faye and it will be just between you and me. We’ll fix it, I promise. You can trust me.”

It was a cruel hoax but I fell for it over and over and over again. Only to be ridiculed at the dinner table, the object of his jokes and sarcasm, and the fodder for his tales on his job. To say our relationship was rocky is the understatement of eternity. Even from his grave he managed a sucker punch as his “secret” life came boiling out once the gatekeeper for was gone.

Now I have a front row seat to the scene of my husband and our daughter’s relationship and I notice with hope and sometimes fear, how much his relationship with her is shaping who she is becoming. Just recently, after having comforted our daughter and assured her that my husband’s seeming indifference to her talking about a conversation between her friends and herself, wasn’t that he didn’t care if she had good friends or not, but just that he was tired from working a ten hour day and just wanted to have a bit of peace and quiet. Then I found myself explaining that his frustration and anger wasn’t because of something she’d done, but that something just hadn’t worked out the way he’d planned.

As a mother I want to shield my daughter from those moments when her father seemed callous in his response to her, because I know he loves her deeply and didn’t see the problem. As a wife I wanted to be supportive of my husband, acknowledge how physically demanding his job is of him and that he deserves to be able to come home and have some man cave time. Plus, understanding we females isn’t always as simple as 1-2-3. Both roles also require that I not be the communication between them, but that I be a catalyst for helping them develop better communication.

Between the three of us this is the “jumping off” list of how a father’s relationship with his daughter teaches them many things, and the list below isn’t meant to be complete, for we are just getting started!

How to talk to men. (Or not talk to men.)

What to expect from the man they marry, how they should be treated and how they should treat him. (Or what not to expect, that being mistreated in any way is okay and how they treat him with love and respect or as if he a doofus.)

What love between a man and a woman looks like, what it should be like, sound like, how it functions day to day in real life when circumstances aren’t all moonlight and roses. (Or what love between man and woman shouldn’t look, shouldn’t be like, shouldn’t sound like or should be withheld if life isn’t all sunshine.)

How being female doesn’t make her a second class citizen. (Or that it does.)

Her relationship (all your children for that matter) with you will come to reflect her relationship with her Heavenly Father. If she feels she can never measure up to your expectations she’ll most likely feel the same about God. On the other hand, if she feels loved by you, encouraged to be her best, supported, understood and wanted so will she, most likely, by God.

I’m no therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist or any other mental health professional but I know, from life experience, how father’s and their daughters have a relationship that no other can ever replace. This mother/wife/daughter is determined to help my daughter and husband learn to talk to one another, even through these awkward, emotional, hormonal teenage years. One day, they will thank me, even if now they both have objections.

In fact, when I talked first to my husband and then to our daughter about their communicating both of them said about the same thing. From him, “I’m not into nail polish and make-up I can’t talk to her”! From her, “Aww…Mama, Daddy’s a man, he doesn’t know about nail polish and girl stuff”!

Both are right. But they discount things that are vitally important.

They love each other and although nail polish and make-up and girl stuff have taken a new place in our daughter’s life they are not ALL she is about.

Her father is not without feelings or the capability to understand that a female’s feelings are often multi-layered. (I know this because he’s married to ME!)

Her concept and idea of God, her heavenly Father, is becoming much like her knowledge of her earthly father.

If you are raising a daughter and you want to honor God’s instructions for raising her to love and serve Him then think long and hard about what your relationship with your daughter is teaching her about her relationship with your Heavenly Father. It matters.

When the question was posed to over 200 people, “What question would you like to ask God when you get to Heaven?” very few people even responded. Of those that did one said they had pages of questions and had already asked God to set aside a day to sit and talk with her about them. Another wanted to be able to understand how God could have always been, always will be. One other person said if it was a “have to” she’d ask how God could show so much mercy/grace/love to someone like her. And one other person wanted to know why God made rats, to which was added by the person who asked the initial question, spiders, mice, rodents, flies, mosquitos, fleas and ticks. Initially the person taking this unscientific survey also listed a few questions she’d like to ask God, such as, what did a snake look like with legs? Did it have four? Six? Eight? More? She’d like to ask Mrs. Noah how they handled the noise, smell and proximity of all those animals on the Ark. One last responder replied that she felt that if in Heaven we all became one spirit we’d not care anymore after our lives on earth.

Now I confess, I think once we get there any thoughts of questions we had will probably evaporate faster than a teaspoon of water outside on a July afternoon in the Deep South, but, I also confess I have such questions. I was also surprised that so few people responded and that the conclusion from that could be so few people have questions. Does that mean my faith is weaker than those who have no such questions? Could it mean my faith allows me to admit to having such questions, that I have things I just don’t get and I really want to understand? Do we think we will insult God to ask Him to explain something to us? Is that not what we are doing when we read and study the Scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and minds to what God wants us to know and understand from the passage? Could it be that one question leads to another to another and before long you can’t remember what you wanted to know to begin with?

The Bible tells us in Mark 10:13-15, “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

I Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Hebrews 5:12-14, “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.”

From these verses let me tell you what I understand. Child-like faith is vital to believing in God. One has to accept without seeing or understanding how God is the “I Am” (Always have been, Always will be) and how He, in the earthly form of Jesus came to this earth via a virgin, willingly died a horrific death by crucifixion after a brutal beating and whipping, was placed in a borrowed tomb and rose again on the third day. He stayed here for a little while, showing Himself to the disciples and other followers before in front of a crowd of over 500 witness ascended into Heaven where He reigns at the right hand of God the Father today. Even though Paul later tells the Corinthians he put away childish talk, thoughts and reasoning when he became a man he also tells them that we see here a bad reflection of what truly is. I believe he means who and what God is, what Heaven will be like, what our lives should be – all those things that occur on earth we don’t get. Paul is perhaps explaining the reason we don’t “get it” is because we lack the complete picture, we see only a reflection and a bad one at that. Of course Paul also tells us in Hebrews that mature Christians are past the stage of having to have the Scriptures and Christian life bottle fed to them like infants taking milk.

So where does that leave our questions?

For me personally I see the fact I am willing to admit I have questions, that as I read God’s word and I don’t understand if I remember in Heaven I wanted to understand that because even here on earth with the help of the Holy Spirit I didn’t get it, then I don’t see that as something shameful. If in Heaven when I see Eve or Noah’s wife or Paul, John or Peter and can ask them questions, then there is no unbelief in that, no display of doubt, simply a seeking to know. Our questions will allow us to share what God has done for us and glorify Him all the more.

Once in Heaven there can be no doubt that Heaven is where we belong or we wouldn’t be there so the question of whether or not we became new creations by the love and gift of God. No, we won’t remember sad things, or miss people we love who have not made Heaven on their journey yet or missed it entirely, there will be no sickness, no pain, and no sorrow. But questions? Yes, I believe questions may very well be allowed.

I also believe that many of our questions will be answered when God reviews our life. When we see our whole journey laid out and see how it all fits many of the things we want to know will be answered. Meanwhile, take your questions to God for the Bible tells us in James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.”

There is almost a feeling of reverence to the hallways that are decorated with jungle scenes, splashes of bright colors, clean flowing curves and glass fronted doors where both curtains and blinds allow for privacy. Behind every closed door is a patient and each one has a story. These patients are children, from new babies up to nineteen years old. This is an intensive care unit so many are in for a fight to live.

The nineteen year old we are leaving a lengthy visit with is my nephew and God has again blessed Alex so he beaten the odds. Again Alex has proved medical science to not be omnipotent and tomorrow he will return to the special needs home where he’s lived away from his family for seven years now. It strikes me anew how terrible this is, a son, brother, nephew, uncle- separated from those who love him-because his day to day needs are best met in out-of-home placement.

Being realistic is a fault with me at times, it falls in line with the battle I have with being cynical. I know, in my head, how impossible it is for us to care for Alex at home. His body is nineteen, his development between a two to six month old. He has no control of his bodily functions, must eat through a feeding tube, wears diapers, can’t speak, see more than light and shadow and no one is certain of how well he hears although he does. He can’t bathe himself and a stroke earlier in life left him with hands that curl into fists. Alex also usually fights whatever is being done for him, not able to grasp why, or who, or what is being done. He has incredible strength for someone whose only exercise is the physical therapy he receives and his squirming all over his bed.

Yet Alex laughs when teased or tickled. He responds to the sound and touch of his mother and sisters. He even seemed to remember me. The doctor’s tell us this is involuntary responses, Alex can’t know us, the bit of brain stem he has doesn’t include the part we use for those functions. I say baloney! Just his sisters talking to him lowered his blood pressure twenty points a few days ago and today, he’d fallen asleep holding my hand with his older sister curled around him and the sleep was so deep the nurse came in to see if he was alright.

It had been such a good visit, Alex was so much better and out of pain. He was off IV medication and didn’t fight his oxygen tubes nose piece as much as usual. He’d basked in the attention of we five females, even blushing and grinning when I teased him about flirting with his nurses. We got some great pictures. It seemed so unfair to know we had no clue how long it would be before we were all together with Alex again.

Now though we have to leave and his sisters and cousin walk around me, his mother lingering for a private good-bye and a flash of intense anger fills me. Gripping the arms of my wheelchair I fight a scream within me. I want to ask God why and how these terrible and cruel things happen to children like Alex who was two weeks old when spinal meningitis ravaged his tiny body.

I know the medical explanations and I know the OBGYN to blame and I know that God has touched hundreds of lives through our little man. I know death and disease entered the world when Eve and Adam sinned. It just hits so hard when someone you love suffers.

The rage disappears as quickly as it comes. I can still feel his hand in mine and the soft thickness of his brown short hair. I can still see his smiles and his “I’m up to something smirk”! We have regrets for him, but he has none.

He doesn’t miss football or baseball, music or flying kites. He doesn’t miss ice cream or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or chocolate milk. His body isn’t addicted to caffeine and sugar highs. He doesn’t know any of this exists. The world he knows is complete.

My anger is replaced with wonder. He is content with his basic needs met, the love of his family when they are there and rediscovering his ears everyday. He is securely in the hand of God with no doubt, no fear and it never occurs to him to sin.

He is beautiful. He is blessed. He is a beacon of belief and hope in this ever darkening world. This boy without a brain has far more than we who have all our gray matter between our ears can fathom. It all depends on your perspective.

The suffering of the innocent will not stop until Jesus returns. The poor will always be with us. Human needs will always be unbalanced and impossible to completely meet. Because we are human and fail our failures will result in the pain of someone else, even doctors who use bad judgment and whose decision wrecks a life. It will never make complete sense until God can show us the much bigger picture. That doesn’t mean we stop trying to help and give hope to those who need it. Our help makes a difference to each one God reaches through us.

Meanwhile as we leave the parking deck and know soon Alex will leave in an ambulance to return to his care facility we feel the sadness of parting. We make plans for the future. We rejoice in every one of Alex’s smiles. Discuss possible care facility placements closer to home now that Alex is an adult. My perspective changes.

If Alex can be content and happy why can’t I? Sure, I agree Alex doesn’t know any other life than his, but so what? Our tendency as humans is to always look for greener pastures but not Alex, he doesn’t know they exist. Maybe there’s a part of Alex who really is more blessed than the rest of us. Maybe it’s all about perspective.

God did a great job on the 10 Commandments. And even though we as Christians today live our lives under grace and not under the law I have a suggestion for a relationship commandment. Simply, “Thou shalt not leave a mess!”

Man meets woman, woman meets man and they fall in love. Then for various reasons, including love, the two get married. A while later along comes the babies. In the process of day-to-day living with your typical life pressures along comes the gap between the husband and wife. There are a ton of reasons and excuses for D-I-V-O-R-C-E and we’ve heard them all! Really, it doesn’t matter the reason; maybe she is a shrew, maybe he just doesn’t care if his family is likely to ask him who he is when he shows up one night for dinner. Regardless of why divorce or breakup occurs, each partner needs to clean up their emotional messes before divorce is granted, especially if children are involved.

An adult child of divorce, a young man with their own marriage and a child on the way echoed something I’ve heard from a multitude of children, teens and adult children of divorced parents, “That’s their stuff and I am sick of carrying it.” Another adult child said, “They were grown up enough to have sex and make me, now they need to be grown up enough to clean up the mess they left!”

What mess? Bitterness. Hate. Loathing. Snipering. I won’t if he/she does. They have no right to_ _____________________. He did, she did, it’s his fault, her fault, blame, point fingers and blame some more.

Worse still are the marriages where a third party is involved, second families started, and resentment over adultery, child support payments, custody issues, and parenting are soon huge bones over which people who once loved one another fight. Enough already! Really enough!

Your kids have had enough. Your ex-spouse has had enough. Your new spouse and/or the new spouse of your ex-spouse has had enough. Thirty days or thirty years since you declared “I don’t anymore” and there’s still a tangled mess between you and your ex-spouse/partner? CLEAN IT UP!

Start with an apology, own your mistakes, CLEAN IT UP or at least knock down the pile some! If you were a shrew, a nag, a perfectionist, an unfaithful partner ADMIT it and say, “I’m sorry”! If you were a workaholic, a spender, an alcoholic, a” I promise…” and it never changed, ADMIT IT.

Every person in your life, including your current spouse/partner will benefit and probably even thank you for it.

I Corinthians 13 says love never gives up, leaving a mess is giving up, and if you loved enough to vow to love until death do you part, then see it through to the final end not just the divorce becoming final. And if you need to find out if you have a mess to clean up I suggest:

poem and photo original to author, all rights reserved. Not to be used without permission. )

Even in this time of trail
This place of darkness
When it seems impossible
That one more second of this
Will surely make you explode
God is here, here, here!

The sun will rise even if beyond the clouds,
The birds will chirp even if from covered perch,
The rain will fall even if on another’s farm,
The storms will come to us all,
But have no fear nor doubt–
God is here, here, here!

Praise Him now when you need healing,
Praise Him now while loved ones groan,
Praise Him now in your darkest hour,
Praise Him in your battering storm,
Praise Him though your voice is weak,
Praise Him despite it all for
God is here, here, here!

As sure as the sun will rise if beyond the clouds,
Sure as the birds will chirp though from covered perch,
Sure as the ocean tides roll out and in,
Sure as life past grave goes on,
Lift your eyes towards the East
To that place beyond this world
Lift your voice in honest praise
For God is here, here, here!
d.f.a.v. 9/16/13